equally real at all stages of his life; specifically, the fact that a particular stage is present cannot be regarded as conferring on it any special status.

If you want the truth rather than merely something to say, you will have a good deal less to say.

To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe.

The more details we learn about the chemical basis of life and the intricacy of the genetic code, the more unbelievable the standard historical account becomes

The external view [of agency] forces itself on us at the same time that we resist it. One way this occurs is through the gradual erosion of what we do by the subtraction of what happens.

The point is... to live one's life in the full complexity of what one is, which is something much darker, more contradictory, more of a maelstrom of impulses and passions, of cruelty, ecstacy, and madness, than is apparent to the civilized being who glides on the surface and fits smoothly into the world.

fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism--something it is like for the organism.